Mini Ninjas Mobile

You can almost guarantee that in any platformer you play there's going to be a whole lot of jumping. Being the staple of most adventures since Mario decided to start hopping down pipes and eating giant mushrooms, jumping is as commonplace as picking up special items or power-ups.

All of which is true of Mini Ninjas, though Eidos has attempted to bring something unique to the table - namely the view. Though Mini Ninja's part-platformer, part-fighter format has little to surprise in terms of content, there's a twist: rather than playing just from a side-on view, we follow the majority of Hiro's adventures from behind, the ground effectively rolling towards him.

This makes gameplay a question of moving right or left to avoid the numerous obstacles in his path, or jumping over them by pushing forward on the D-pad. Every hit you take saps your health, though this is easily replenished by picking up the heart icons that are dotted along the route.

As are the icons that make up your special moves, which are used in the fighting sections that sandwich your adventures. These take a more traditional side-on view, and standard attacks have to be backed up by any special moves you've unlocked along the way. The icons you pick up essentially act as a code to trigger said attacks.

It's a smart way of avoiding the usual route of set inputs triggering such moves, but in truth it doesn't lift Mini Ninjas above the banal. With serious slowdown stifling play on our N95 build as it is, there's nothing here that hasn't been seen countless times before - and in most cases far better implemented.